Judiciary must take “Suo Moto Control”: Fr. Cedric Prakash,sj;

Vanzara did not admit that the encounters were fake and said that the killings followed a “conscious policy of the government

(Photo: India Today)

Ahmedabad:

A Jesuit activist in Gujarat has demanded the judiciary to “take suo moto control” over the controversial fake encounter killings after a suspended top police officer said the killings followed a “conscious policy of the government.”

State’s suspended Deputy Inspector General of Police D. G. Vanzara, allegedly involved in four fake encounter cases, on Tuesday tendered his resignation accusing the Narendra Modi Government of framing 32 police officials in encounter cases while protecting ruling party politicians close to the Chief Minister.

“Now that Vanzara himself has spilled the beans and come out with several ‘aspects’ of the encounter killings in Gujarat, it is high time that the Judiciary take suo moto control over this matter and ensure that the so-called “powerful” people of Gujarat are brought to book immediately,” said Father Cedrick Prakash, a rights activist based in Ahmadabad said in a statement.

A main accused in the chain of fake encounters in Gujarat, Mr. Vanzara released a 10-page letter of resignation from his Mumbai jail.

Vanzara was arrested in April 2007 in connection with the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case and then picked up in July 2010 for the Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter case and later in Ishrat Jahan murder case as well, besides in Sadique Jamal case. “Fake encounter” is a term used in India for officials killing unarmed people by faking an encounter with them.

Vanzara accused the state government of trapping the arrested policemen in various fake encounters. He s said if he and other police officers were responsible for carrying out alleged fake encounters, the investigators of these cases have to “arrest the policy formulators also as we, being field officers, have simply implemented the conscious policy of this government which was inspiring, guiding, and monitoring our actions from very close quarters. By this reasoning, I am of the firm opinion that the place of this government, instead of being in Gandhinagar should either be in Taloja Central Prison at Navi Mumbai or in Sabarmati Central Prison at Ahmedabad.”

Father Prakash said this statement of the police officer shows that “slowly but surely truth and justice will triumph in Gujarat.”

Vanzara said he had maintained a “graceful silence for such a long period” only because of his “supreme faith and highest respect” for Narendra Modi, whom he used to “adore like a God” but his “God could not rise to the occasion under the evil influence…”

The reasons for this was politician Amit Shah, his co-accused in Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, who Vanzara said usurped Modi’s “eyes and ears and has been successfully misguiding him by converting goats into dogs and dogs into goats since the last 12 years.”

Modi has been talking of repaying his debt, which he owes to Mother India. But, in the “hurry of marching towards Delhi, (he) may kindly not forget to repay the debt which he owes to jailed police officers,” Vanzara wrote in his letter addressed to Additional Chief Secretary, Home.

But Vanzara did not admit that the encounters were fake and said that the killings followed a “conscious policy of the government,” in the wake of rising Jihadi terrorism after the Godhra train burning and subsequent riots, when the government had adopted a “proactive policy of zero tolerance for terrorism” at the highest level.

These comments reflect the prejudices we carry,and the misconceptions ingrained in our minds since childhood. I remember my parents and grand parents caution me not to fight or be friendly with muslims,I have now learnt they are not as bad as they are made out to be; also the remark “Stupid” Goans who voted them to power, In my humble opnion BJP is bad but Congress is worse.